Kaltefleiter: Changing location is fool's talk

Posted: Wednesday, October 24, 2007

John

Kaltefleiter

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The rest of college football should be jealous of Georgia and Florida.

The schools have two of the most majestic venues in the SEC, if not the entire country. It doesn't get much louder and chaotic than inside the Gators' Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, and it doesn't get more picturesque than a sun-splashed field at Sanford Stadium.

Few Georgia fans have been fortunate enough to see a game inside the Gainesville, Fla. city limits. For Florida fans, most of them have never seen in person the famed hedges guarding the field at Sanford Stadium.

Just 11 times since 1904 have the Gators and Bulldogs played somewhere other than Jacksonville. On Saturday, the teams will meet there for the 75th time.

For the last few years there's been a groundswell of sentiment calling for the schools to dump Jacksonville and start a home-and-home series. If not to that extreme, some have suggested rotating between Jacksonville and Atlanta or playing in Jacksonville only every third year.

Even Georgia coach Mark Richt has warmed to the idea of adjusting the format where the Bulldogs don't have to treat the game like a traditional road game. After all, as he's pointed out a few times, the Gators can hop aboard busses and be at the stadium in an hour.

Sure, they're better venues to play Georgia-Florida than the stadium formerly known to Georgia fans as "Aw-hell" Stadium. Certainly, there are better cities than Jacksonville.

Even so, this game belongs along the St. Johns and should remain there for another 75 games. The event, which will remain as the "World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" no matter which president presides over each university, is what sets the series apart from the rest of college football.

Flip-flopping between schools every year or incorporating another neutral site into the mix, a la the Georgia Dome, shouldn't be considered at all.

Of course, uprooting the game wasn't an issue before 1989 - at least not with Georgia fans. The Bulldogs had won 15 of 19 in the series until Steve Spurrier reappeared in Gainesville in 1990.

Since then, the Gators have won 15 of 17 and have put together win streaks of seven, six and two games.

For Georgia fans, Jacksonville has become like the DMV or airport security in Atlanta. It's a place where Friday optimism has turned into Sunday sorrow year after year. They keep telling themselves it's a cyclical thing, that the pendulum will swing the other way and that Georgia will reassert itself as the dominant force in the series.

When that will actually take place, who knows? It could take another five, 10 or 15 years, or it could start with a win Saturday. At some point, though, the Bulldogs' consistent losing trend will subside and so will talk of moving the game out of Jacksonville.

Well, at least Georgia fans won't be the ones lobbying for relocation.

John Kaltefleiter is the sports editor of the Banner-Herald. PHONE: 706-208-2239. E-MAIL: john.kaltefleiter@onlineathens.com